A possible setback for DRM in Europe

I think you need to study talking to people some more (a handy soft skill, even for computer scientists), but I agree on the fact, that the reason I stated is not the only or even the most important one. In fact, I followed the technical side of the PS3 hack a while back, so I know what had to be done in order to provide a software solution to the DRM problem.

Then again, mod chips would have been possible all the years since the console was released, there have even been discussions and concepts in the respective circles, but it was dropped by most with the capabilities to realize it, because the commercial potencial was considered to be not worth the effort, not only because the legislation would allow hunting them down like cheap game, but also because the time for offline-only experiences have been gone for good for a while.

Another fact: Black market blurays and home grown game isos have been around for way longer than the LVo key release (as much as PS3 BD isos have been on the bay for ages), because there have been JTAG based workarounds, just like everybody knows on the Xbox360. It's just that nobody outside the pirate scene really knew much about it, because all this soft modding and clip-on-a-chip mod chips (see WiiKey) really made the masses lazy. It also did not help the homebrew scene, the actual driving force behind console modding, to solve their problems. The homebrew lover is usually the legitimate customer type, who simply wants to do more with those expensive devices.